Last weekend, one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met passed away.

Adam L. worked on the experiential education team at the therapeutic boarding school where I teach.  He was in charge of taking the students to camp in the wilderness on weekends during Summer and Fall.  These trips helped them relax while surrounded by the gorgeous Utah wilderness, taught them to appreciate nature, and facilitated the students building relationships with each other that would help them through their day to day struggles as they progressed through our therapeutic program.

That was a long paragraph that tried to capture the important role that Adam played at our school.

As a teacher, and someone just generally happy to observe nature through a window or a computer monitor, I wasn’t particularly close to Adam.  He had more energy than me.  He took in more of the world than I did, and we had interests outside of work that ran in opposite directions.  But I would frequently see him around the campus, attend meetings with him, and of course, Christmas and Summer work parties.  Hell, I once spent a whole weekend with him, the weekend team, and the students in lovely and desolate Southern Utah.  It was the coldest, sorest, most challenging thing I’ve experienced since I was in a drum corp 10 years ago.

So while Adam and I weren’t fast friends, we were colleagues.

There’s something about him that just doesn’t come through on paper.  He was genuine.  He cared about EVERYTHING.  He saw the best in every situation and raised the attitude and mood of those around him because he was just so GENUINE, and had such a contagious passion for life.  I know it’s easy to worship the deceased and forget their faults, to reduce them to sound bites and selective memories.  Unless you knew him, you’ll have to take my word for it that I am being straight up about this.

In the wake of his death it’s easy to see the respect he commanded, and the love he earned from everyone around him.  Stories are shared; we laugh and we cry.  We try to carry on, because that’s the way death works.

Adam was just 30 years old.  His passing shakes the illusions that we as humans build for ourselves–that we are safe and that everything is okay.  But if we live in fear of what might happen, are we really getting all we should from life?  Here is what I take from the short time I knew Adam:

Consume life with an insatiable appetite.  Be the best person you can be.  Love those around you without reservation, and hold nothing back in the pursuit of these things.

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” – 14th Dalai Lama

Farewell, Adam.  Safe journey.

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Beth and I had a really great New Year’s celebration this year.

We had sparklers, some fireworks, and made a fantastic homemade lasagna dinner.  We watched the fireworks at midnight from the parking structure near our house.  We had a perfect view, but DAMN it was cold.

One important part of our celebration was writing down the things that stood out for us each month last year, and then compiling a list of all the good things that happened and all the bad things that happened.

Let me tell you, it was TOUGH to write down all the bad things that happened.  It brings up things you don’t realize you push down; it makes you want to kick and scream like a child and say IT’S NOT FAIR.  For example, last year, my grandfather passed away.  That was pretty tough.  Even closer to home, my fucking ROCKSTAR of an awesome cat, my best friend that is not my wife or parents was diagnosed with Feline Leukemia.  It was HARD.  It’s hard to write about it right now.

But that’s the way it goes, I guess.

Don’t get me wrong though, there were some awesome bits in 2011.

I finally started my own business (which is still in the starting phase–but I made the switch in thinking, which is what’s important).  I went on two trips with my wife.  I got to see my family in March (though for sad circumstances).  I started investing a lot of time and energy in being healthy, which was a huge step for me.

Anyway, where I was going with that was–on New Year’s Eve, Beth and I started a fire, and tossed our list of all the bad things in.  We sat in silence and watched it burn, turn to ash, and disintegrate.  We made our goals for 2012 and have resolved to check in once a month, during our made-up holiday, Meristem, and evaluate the goals for the past month, how we met them, and our goals going forward.

I will be posting my monthly goals on this blog, as well as the weekly goals that are derived from that.

One thing I like about my old blog is the ability to look back and remember the little things during the year, because I can scroll through the posts.

So I have some big expectations for the New Year.  Some of them I cannot talk about for obvious/non-obvious reasons.

If you’re into that sort of thing, or you’re just curious–stay tuned.  There’ll be a lot more to come this week with goals and challenges for the 2012 year.

So here’s to your SHIT list in 2012 being infinitely smaller than your AWESOME list.

Photo of the Day:  Sparkler!

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So it’s been awhile since I’ve played the drums.

Like… 3.5 years or so.

I used to play all the time, everyday.  But since I moved to Salt Lake City, I have been caught up with going to school, and then when I graduated, working as a teacher.  I never stopped thinking about drums though.  I just couldn’t find a way to play.  The girl didn’t want me to play while she was home, and I didn’t want to scare the cats and stress them out.  (We have a lot of cats).

But then I found a way to make it work.  I basically found a place to play drums [more on that in a future post].

So I’ll be posting a new drum video at least once a week.  Over the years I’ve gotten out of shape (and definitely out of practice), but since quitting gluten and giving up sugar [more on that in a later post, too], I decided it’s time to get back in shape.  And since I love drumming so much, I’m gonna use that as my source of exercise.

I think it’ll be fun to see the change in playing, and physique over time.  Both will drastically improve.

Here is the first video, with me completely out of practice.

Song: Who Watches the Watchmen

Artist: The Prize Fighter Inferno

So follow along.  This is one of my new year’s resolutions.  What are yours?

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On Monday during the second half of the school day, we were visited by someone from a reptile education program.  I forget the name of the company, but they are hired for group functions and presentations, and bring an assortment of animals to display and talk about.

The dude started the presentation by walking a tarantula around the room.  A big, hairy, nasty, leggy tarantula.  I escaped with my life, but just barely.  While I was out of the room, err, doing important work and waiting for the O.K. from my co-workers to enter the room, Mr. Reptile also apparently brought out a scorpion and at one point, put the thing in his mouth.

1. Unsanitary!

2. SCORPION

There’s a lot more reasons why that’s a bad idea, but the guy was a showman, and the kids loved it.  I got to see some crazy animals, like a tortoise, some giant lizards, a baby alligator (that hissed at all of us), and three snakes, ranging from 2 feet to about 10 feet.  Python!

Sometimes it’s stressful working in a residential treatment center, working with guys that struggle to get through the day sometimes, due to huge things like crippling depression and anxiety.  And apart from all of the great reasons to work as a special ed teacher with these kinds of guys (seeing them grow over the 8 months or so they are with us at school is A-MAZE-ING), sometimes we just get to do neat stuff.  Like get visited by reptiles in the afternoon.

What did you do this week that was out of the ordinary?

Picture of the Day:

The medium sized snake

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It’s been a busy weekend.

Aside from watching a ton of football (Go Panthers), and cleaning the house, I spent the weekend getting things in order.

The new site design took much longer than it should, but I’m pretty proud of the work I put in.  I also picked up a copy of “Four Hour Body” by Tim Ferris.  I find Ferris to be a compelling author, and am fascinated by the tone of complete confidence that comes through in his writing.

I put up an opt-in page for a new project I’m starting, so I can collect email addresses for a list and drum up a little interest while I put the pieces together behind the scenes.  I’ve never launched something like this before, treating it like a big deal instead of just quiet posting on my blog and hoping someone notices.

Facebook ads has been pretty cool.  Within an hour of putting two small time ads up (spending less than 6 dollars a day total), I had 10 click throughs, and 3 people sign up for my list.  Success!  So maybe this idea isn’t completely nuts.  It’s nice to feel a tiny drop of success in an otherwise frigid land of new businesses, where people mostly ignore ads and pleas for interest.  I think I’ll let these ads run for about a week and see how it goes.  I set a personal goal of collecting 50 emails before I launch the site.  When that happens, I’ll post the link here.

Some of the ideas to work it this way came from my smart and beautiful wife, Beth, but the actual steps and examples came from an Appsumo.com deal on how to start a business in a weekend.  It’s called the Business Blueprint, and I recommend checking it out if you’re interested in this kind of thing.  It was worth the price, and then some.

Goals for the Week:

- Hustle it and pick up another drum student

- Put up for sale ads for my Mom’s Lexus (contact me if you’re in the market for a SWEET ride)

- Create the first product for my BUSINESS (that I talked about above and will reveal later)

- Research and buy the domain for MUSIC PROJECT that I’d like to start in the new year

- Contact local AUTOCAD dudes about creating a prototype for INVENTION 1

- Contact some companies about DROPSHIPPING for BUSINESS project

Busy Week!  I’ll post the Weekly Goals Follow-up on Saturday

Picture of the day:

Sleeping Cat and Little Christmas Tree

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Not a bad day, really.  The wife did some really cool business stuff today, and I got several things done on my sites.  We went to dinner at Squatters in downtown SLC.  They are great with the vegetarian menu, and have a few great dishes that are gluten free (even a gluten free beer.  The beer had a sweet taste up front, and an ultra bitter aftertaste).

You may notice this site (this NEGLECTED site) is looking a little different.  I spent all night working on the design, which I kind of love.  It’s the best my poor design skills can do, but it’s better than anything I’ve done before, so… winner.

Got a hold of the new Chevelle album to review over at New Music Releases.  Spoiler: It’s ridiculously good.

Late night… that’s it for now.  I hope to post more soon about some of the cool things I’m rocking, like this stupid gluten free diet!

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